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After the Calgary Flames clash with the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night, Ray Ferraro made no bones about it.

The subject was Flames captain Jarome Iginla.

“That’s the best game I’ve seen him play start to finish in a long time,” said Ferraro, who was the analyst for the TSN broadcast of the 3-1 Kings victory at the Saddledome. “The funny thing is the people focus on whether he scored or didn’t score, but it didn’t matter if he didn’t score because he was terrific, and sometimes the puck just doesn’t go in.

“If he can dial that game up all the time, people aren’t having this discussion.”

The fact is, though, Iginla’s production is a discussion these days, albeit one of many surrounding the floundering club.

By no means are the Flames’ struggles all on Iginla.

The issues surrounding the club with a 5-7-3 record are wide-ranging:

• No. 1 goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff wasn’t at his best to start the season, and while he’s been injured, none of his replacements have proven to be at his level.

• The team’s defensive play, which includes the forwards, has been nowhere near good enough.

• The performances have been maddeningly inconsistent, especially of late.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

However, Iginla remains a centrepiece of the club, and with just one goal in 15 outings — two in 26 going back to last season — it’s a problem needing to be solved.

“I think most 35-year-olds lose a half a step,” said Ferraro, whose career included 408 goals in more than 1,200 NHL games. “In today’s game, when you lose a half-step, there’s so much pressure from the backcheck that wasn’t there before, and that lost half-step means you don’t get to the spot to shoot the puck.

Compounding the issue is Iginla is just like every other player when they’re mired in a slump ­— they start thinking about scoring goals and tend to forget the process which results in them.

Yes, that even happens to players with more than 500 tallies under their belt.

“That’s common,” said a former player. “Curtis Glencross is that way. Mike Cammalleri is. Lee Stempniak has been really good this year, but he stops moving his feet, he’s not hitting guys and not getting to the open spaces.

“Jarome is just like every other guy in that sense.”

Iginla’s struggles come amidst a season in which he’s either dealing with a revolving door of centres or skating with Alex Tanguay in the middle, instead of his usual spot on left wing.

As easy as it is to say Iginla has made a career without playing alongside a true No. 1 centre, it can’t be getting any easier.

Curiously, Iginla is firing as many pucks on goal as ever,

Heading into Thursday’s action, he was tied for 13th in the league with 57 shots on goal, albeit last among players with at least one goal with his 1.8% shooting percentage.

At his current pace, he would surpass 300 shots over a full 82-game season for just the fourth time in his career.

“But his shots are not all from the premium areas,” said another former player. “He had nine shots (Wednesday) but some of those were probably awfully easy for Jonathan Bernier.”

What remains to be seen is whether Iginla’s struggles are a slump or a sign of what’s to come.

“I don’t think anybody thinks he’s a checking winger for the fourth line — he’s a significant player on any team,” Ferraro said. “Jarome’s got game left and I think he’s got big-game potential left, and you have to be a special person to have that potential.”

However, Ferraro is a proponent of the theory both the Flames and Iginla are better off if he’s traded before becoming an unrestricted free-agent this summer.

In fact, Ferraro believes the moves should also include dealing away Kiprusoff and defenceman Jay Bouwmeester.

“It seems illogical to not at least explore all the possibilities,” he said. “I think the fans would understand a rebuild.

“The team simply is not good enough, and in Calgary, they shouldn’t accept that. I mean all of them, the management, the ownership, the fans.”

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End of Iginla's funk could come too late

After the Calgary Flames clash with the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night, Ray Ferraro made no bones about it.

The subject was Flames captain Jarome Iginla.

“That’s the best game I’ve seen him play start to finish in a long time,” said Ferraro, who was the analyst for the TSN broadcast of the 3-1 Kings victory at the Saddledome. “The funny thing is the people focus on whether he scored or didn’t score, but it didn’t matter if he didn’t score because he was terrific, and sometimes the puck just doesn’t go in.

“If he can dial that game up all the time, people aren’t having this discussion.”

The fact is, though, Iginla’s production is a discussion these days, albeit one of many surrounding the floundering club.

By no means are the Flames’ struggles all on Iginla.

The issues surrounding the club with a 5-7-3 record are wide-ranging ...